Wednesday, May 23, 2012

I had a fabulous Mother's Day! I felt so special with my four wonderful little rascals celebrating for me! Tyler helped them pick out the cute garden (or kitchen) gnome for me! I am so excited to get to go paint him!!!

They woke me up a bit early (your supposed to get to sleep in on Mother's Day, right?) at 730am, but it was sleeping in an hour past usual... plus they had breakfast in bed! With a flower even.

And of course, chocolates were had. Tyler knows what I need.

The gnome is kind of a funny gift. Tyler HATES garden gnomes (he thought the movie "Gnomeo and Juliet" was pretty cute, and he thought the boys dressed as gnomes for Halloween was cute... but for some reason, he dislikes the garden variety pretty hard.... unfair! I think they are so cute! The travelocity gnome is just so cute! Anyways, he got me a gnome... he must really love me!

Then we went to the zoo.. one of our favorite things to do around here. The peacock is one of Ayla's favorite, and she always tries to get close.

Do peacocks bite? or peck?

Isn't the mountain lion picture a tad scary? These 2 here will prowl and follow anything with wheels... aka kids in strollers!

Today we had baked tofu with watermelon salsa (I thought it was fantastic) and a strawberry "cheese" cake for dessert. And for breakfast, I made this cashew cream sauce for over berries... it was to die for! I like this vegan thing... or maybe just getting new recipes and cooking new stuff is fun. Either way, I find it WAY more healthier than I was eating... which was pretty healthy to begin with!

Well, I better go help Tyler pack for our weekend camping trip (again!). We are gearing up for the big one next month!

Tyler and I are participating in a Tough Mudder event, down in Austin, Texas on October 6th.

We are super excited!

The Tough Mudder donates a bunch of money to the Wounded Warrior Project, and asks each of its participants to help raise even more... if you would like to donate under our name (and it gets us a discount off our entry fee) here is the link.

My parents are coming out here to watch the kids for us AND a good friend and her brother are coming out from the DC area! We go way back to the Misawa days! And also another fellow Misawa dweller is joining us, but she already lives in Austin! It is going to be so fun!

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

The pictures do a lot of the talking. I love the last sequence of pictures... Ayla and Colton doing their treasure hunt. The look on Ayla's face as it dawns on her that the basket is tied up above her is so cute! Brooke and Kasey took their turn after (they were busy feeding ducks the first time around!) and the other two "experienced" ones showed them the ropes.

I know I always put up close ups of my kids... I just love their big blue eyes, so of course there are a couple of those.

And the walking stick creature! It was huge! The kids were all fascinated.

We picked up some peaches on the way in Fredericksburg, Texas, were there are signs for peaches every couple feet it seems!

The last night we were there was interesting... a family came to join our crew (they spent the day doing other family things, so they didn't come when we did), and somehow while they were setting up camp, their car keys went missing!

Last place they were seen was on the kids blanket, so we assumed that one of the kids walked off with it (Kellen was a huge suspect). So we asked them if anyone had... Kellen was asked a couple different times, and we said "when we find the keys, we will make smores." So of course, he admitted to taking the keys and throwing them in the river!!! We searched and searched. But did not find anything. So after a couple hours of searching, we decided to have smores and put the kids to bed.

In the morning, the keys were found... under their tent!!! Glad it didn't turn out to my kid!

This was a 4.5 hour trip away from our house, and the kids were so AWESOME! They really are great travelers.